# Simon Chikovani
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{{Short description|Georgian poet}}{{Infobox person
| name = Simon Ivanes dze Chikovani
| image = Simon Chikovani and Nikolai Zabolotsky.jpg
| caption = Simon Chikovani (left) and [Nikolai Zabolotsky](/source/Nikolai_Zabolotsky)
| native_name = სიმონ ჩიქოვანი
| native_name_lang = ka
| birth_date = December 27, 1902
| death_date = April 24,1966 (aged 63)
| education = [Tbilisi State University](/source/Tbilisi_State_University)
| occupation = Poet
}}
'''Simon Ivanes dze Chikovani''' ({{lang-ka|სიმონ ჩიქოვანი}}; 27 December 1902 – 24 April 1966) was a prominent [Georgian](/source/Georgia_(country)) poet. He set out to be the leader of the Georgian [Futurist](/source/Futurism_(art)) movement and ended up as a Soviet establishment figure.
==Early life and career==
Born near the town [Abasha](/source/Abasha), he was educated at the [Kutaisi](/source/Kutaisi) [Realschule](/source/Realschule) and [Tbilisi State University](/source/Tbilisi_State_University) from which he graduated in 1922. As a teenager, he was associated with the [Blue Horns](/source/Blue_Horns), a group of young Georgian Symbolists. Although he stood far from any “[proletarian](/source/proletarian)” thematic, he joined the nascent "Left" poets and became their spokesman. In 1924, was arrested and nearly shot on a walking-tour to [Kakheti](/source/Kakheti) during the [Red Terror](/source/Red_Terror) that followed the [Georgian rebellion](/source/August_Uprising) against the [Soviet](/source/Soviet_Union) rule. Between 1924 and 1929, he produced two series of poems (ფიქრები მტკვრის პირას ["The Thought at the [Mtkvari](/source/Mtkvari)"], 1925; მხოლოდ ლექსები ["Only Poems"], 1930) that earned him a reputation of one of the most original Georgian poets of the 20th century. In the words of modern British scholar [Donald Rayfield](/source/Donald_Rayfield), "most are energetic and provocative [Whitmanesque](/source/Walt_Whitman) heckling and satirising of the older generation of poets: Chikovani sported [Mayakovsky](/source/Vladimir_Mayakovsky)’s mantle."[[Rayfield, Donald](/source/Rayfield%2C_Donald) (2000), ''[The Literature of Georgia: A History](/source/The_Literature_of_Georgia%3A_A_History)'', pp. 265-260. [Routledge](/source/Routledge), {{ISBN|0-7007-1163-5}}.] Since 1924, he edited the notorious Futurist journal ''[H2SO4](/source/Sulfuric_acid)'' and directed his attacks against his former associates from the Blue Horns group, chiefly [Titsian Tabidze](/source/Titsian_Tabidze) and [Paolo Iashvili](/source/Paolo_Iashvili).
==Later years and turn to politics==
From 1930 onward, he distanced himself from his innovative Futurism and brought his work more in line with ideologically-sanctioned patriotic lyrics and love-poetry, suppressing all reference to his versatile early work, especially during the 1937 [Great Purge](/source/Great_Purge), in which his brother was shot. He went on to serve as a secretary of the Georgian Union of Writers from 1930 to 1932, its president from 1944 to 1951, and finally as deputy of the [Supreme Soviet](/source/Supreme_Soviet) from 1950 to 1954.